


Between the Sky and Sea

by Finally_Home



Category: F. T. Island
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, F/M, Fantasy, Hurt and comfort, Immortality, M/M, POV Third Person Limited, descriptive? deep? idk, main ship is seunghyun/hongki, seunghyun's immortal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:14:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22153873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Finally_Home/pseuds/Finally_Home
Summary: Song Seunghyun reflects upon the life: the wars he’s fought, the lands he’s seen, the people he’s loved.“There was something about him that drew me in. Maybe it was fate, maybe curiosity or infatuation, but regardless, I knew I needed to have him.”
Relationships: Choi Minhwan/Song Seunghyun, Lee Hongki/Song Seunghyun, Song Seunghyun/Juniel
Kudos: 4





	Between the Sky and Sea

_Severely_

He first met him on the battlefield. Amidst the chaos, he seemed no more than a flash of gray, the dim light of dawn glinting dully off his armor. A whirlwind of a soldier, slashing his way through the enemy forces, mesmerizingly golden as the sun climbed its way into the sky. Blood flew, droplets raining down like cherry blossoms in the spring, and Seunghyun could only watch as the opposing side collapsed like a wave crashing onto the shore.

His name, Seunghyun soon learned, was Choi Minhwan, and he had never known a life without war. Of course he hadn't; the war had been raging for thirty years prior, and Minhwan was only twenty years old. Something about the way this boy talked - the passion glimmering in his wide eyes, the wide gestures he made with his hands, the grin tugging slightly at the corners of his mouth - something about it drew Seunghyun to him. Perhaps it was the raw emotion, maybe the naive excitement, but Seunghyun knew he needed to have it.

He wanted Choi Minhwan to himself, this fiery boy filled with unrelenting rage and righteousness. He wanted him, wanted to protect him, wanted to use him. He didn't love Minhwan, not really, but he admired him, and that's why, Seunghyun supposes, he wanted to break him. He wanted to break Choi Minhwan and use his power for his own selfish desires.

Because otherwise, how was he supposed to tell him that the other side was no more wrong than their own?

Seunghyun didn't fight in the war because he wanted to; he did because he had to. He had to, otherwise the other kingdom would destroy his homeland. The rolling green hills, the sparkling summer ocean, the soft white beaches - Seunghyun couldn't bear to lose it, wouldn't stand to see everything disappear into blazing red flames. He had to fight, or he would lose everything.

Choi Minhwan fought for the glory; Song Seunghyun fought for survival. One to uphold the honor of his country; the other simply to live in peace for the rest of his much-too-long life. Seunghyun never wanted to push Minhwan to the frontline with his cynicism and anger, yet the boy took him seriously, lectured him about how life is short and we all die anyway so why don't we take a stand for the better, and stood and disappeared into battle.

He never wanted that.

And yet, when the battalion returned, bloody and bruised and their numbers cut in half, he realized that this would have happened anyway. Choi Minhwan, with all his innocence and pride for his kingdom, would have rushed into battle to face the enemy headfirst, whether or not Seunghyun was there to discourage him. This was the very essence of Choi Minhwan, and this is what he left Seunghyun with, a tragic, ironic lesson of standing up for the causes he cared about, and a ribbon, faded yellow from wear, one of many on the hilt of his sword.

Words, a ribbon. This is all that is left of Choi Minhwan, the first person Seunghyun could say that he loved.

_Madly_

Choi Junhee. No, Choi Seoah. Seunghyun still can't remember her real name, that's how elusive she was. She was an angel, and they lived an idyllic life in the rolling green hills for years and years after the war. 

For a long time after the war ended, Seunghyun felt empty. Hollow, as if something was missing, as if he lacked organs. The war had been won, and he should have been happy, yet holding a faded yellow ribbon, a string of emphatically-spoken words echoing in his mind, Seunghyun couldn't bring himself to celebrate. He'd wandered, followed wherever his feet decided to take him, and ultimately, he had ended up lost. 

It was Seoah who'd saved him, picked him up from the deepest of the night - and of his heart - and pieced him back together again. It was she who'd allowed him to stay, foraging for herbs in repayment, and it was she who'd taught him how to love again.

He'd never loved Minhwan, but perhaps he had loved Seoah. Everything about her was gentle, from the faint but genuine smile whenever their gazes met to the way she walked, never making a sound despite the fallen leaves on the forest floor. He remembers approaching her in the dim light of the fireplace, embracing her from the back, and the particular way she placed her hand on his.

Gently, gently. Everything about her was gentle, and in some greedy, slelfish way, Seunghyun wanted it. He wanted it to himself, wanted to pick her up and devour her, hide her away from the rest of the world so that no one might ever hurt her. How sweet she must taste, he'd imagined, and something perverse about the fantasy drew him to her. Perhaps it was the terrible desire, or maybe it was a purer attraction, but he knew he loved her.

And she loved him too, leaving her age-old home in the forest to settle with him in the rolling green hills by the sea. His childhood, he told her, and she'd only smiled in that absentminded way of hers and nodded, leaning her head against his shoulder. 

And how he'd loved her. It pains him now to think of it, the quiet nights spent in front of the fireplace, telling her of his impossibly-long life, listening to her stories about the fae; the peaceful picnics beside the beach on the crystalline sand that was softer than the wool she wore, watching the waves crest and break on the shoreline a few lengths away; the content strolls through the waist-deep grass, stopping in mutual silent understanding to watch the sun slip beneath the horizon.

Yes, he'd loved her. He'd loved her, yet he'd left her alone, standing on the jagged cliff overlooking the tumultous sea, the storm buffeting her petite figure, and he hadn't looked back. Unable to overcome his nature of wandering, he'd left her with a promise, one to come back and visit, one day, some day, if she was still alive.

No doubt she would be, and Seunghyun left with his conscience heavy, one more artifact to take with him on his journey between the sky and sea.

_Paradise_

By the time he'd found Lee Hongki, Seunghyun was no longer young, not even by his terms. He was old, tired, and utterly sick of the world. Years, decades of journeys had brought him nothing but pain and sorrow. Everywhere he looked, there seemed to be suffering, and everyone he befriended, they all seemed to remind him of one of two people, a boy with overflowing confidence or a woman too good for the cruelties of life. By the time he found Lee Hongki, all Seunghyun wanted was to be free of his burdens, three of which always rested on his mind like the scales of justice do a criminal.

But salvation came in the form of a man, a beautiful one, who pulled out the chair next to Seunghyun in the seedy little bar he'd been drowning his sorrows in. The man sat down, ordered an absinthe, and turned to Seunghyun with a crooked smile, a devilish one, and said, 'Nice to meet you, Lee Hongki at your service.'

Seunghyun remembers scoffing out loud. 'At your service? Who says that anymore?' he thinks he might have said, and Lee Hongki only grinned and said no more, tapping the wooden countertop with his fingers, head bobbing in time to some tune which only he could hear. One privy only to him, so that any onlookers might have thought the action weird, yet somehow, Seunghyun wanted to know more.

'There was something about him that drew me in,' he would later write to Seoah, for the first time in nearly a century. 'Maybe it was fate, maybe curiosity or infatuation, but regardless, I knew I needed to have him.'

And so, in that terribly, disgustingly, horrendously selfish way of his, Seunghyun befriended Lee Hongki and walked out of the bar with him, an arm slung over his shoulders, the drunken lyrics of an old sea shanty tumbling out of his mouth like the very definition of inebriation. But Hongki hadn't minded, only smiled and hoisted him higher, and directed them to a nearby bench.

'Tell me about yourself,' he'd said, once Seunghyun had thrown up all the contents of his stomach. 'You haven't lived this long for nothing, have you?'

All he remembers is the shock, that of Hongki knowing, inherently, that he was not entirely human. Seunghyun remembers blinking very hard, as if to summon any words, in order to answer the question or to fire back a response or even to just ask how he knew. And yet none came, and he sat on the bench, with nothing but the night sky surrounding him, and shook his head.

'What about those you've once loved?'

Ah, those he'd once loved. That was easy, especially to Seunghyun's intoxicated brain. He'd laughed, thrown back his head and laughed until tears ran down his face in rivulets and dried in the frosty late-autumn wind, and then he'd told Hongki about the people he'd once loved.

'There was a boy, a thousand years ago, who insisted that pride was best shown through action. Life is short, he'd said, so why don't we take a stand for it while we still can?' Seunghyun tipped back his head, shook back his sleeve, and showed Hongki the thin ribbon wound around his wrist. 'And like a fool, he'd died for it, leaving me with just barely anything to remember him by. He was a beautiful boy, lofty as the sky, all golden sunshine reflecting off his armor.'

'And he went down fighting,' Hongki murmured softly, 'the fruitless efforts of your anger wasted, leaving you with no more than regret.'

Don't remind me, Seunghyun wanted to say, but he couldn't, because Hongki was right, and he nodded. 'Nothing but regret.'

'And the woman?'

Seunghyun paused. 'Seoah might have loved me. I loved her, certainly. She fixed me, when I was broken, and we spent the better part of a thousand years together, living in the woods, living by the sea, and she was my ocean. The ocean is a woman, did you know that? You need to know how to treat her right, how to work with her, not against, never against. And Seoah...'

'Would have been the one for you,' Hongki finished quietly, 'had you not met her in a time of crisis. Correct?'

Again, all he could do was nod. 'I used her, took advantage of her, just like I did with Minhwan. I used them for myself, my own greed, my selfish desires. What did they give me? Everything. They gave me their lives, and all I gave back was pain, hurt, and broken promises.' He'd held out his hand, let the moonlight pool in his palm, and closed his fingers, grasping onto the last bit of light in the darkness of the night. 'I never did go back to visit.'

'Life's too short and we'll all die anyway,' Hongki echoed, fingers working deftly at the knot in the faded yellow ribbon. 'Perhaps you should see her soon, lest she becomes another regret in your long, long life.'

'Life was made for regrets.' The ribbon slipped off his wrist, falling onto the ground, and Seunghyun felt lighter. The corners of Hongki's mouth had turned up, and he'd leaned in, brushed his lips across Seunghyun's, feather-light, and stood and left, leaving Seunghyun alone in the night with a multitude of thoughts jumbled in his mind.

_Becoming you_

It would be years before he'd meet Hongki again, but in the time between, Seunghyun had learned to remove some of his burdens. He'd visited the battleground where Minhwan had died, and returned the lesson he'd taught him.

'Life is short and we all die anyway, so why don't we take a stand for the better?' he said, hair blowing in the wind. 'Because sometimes, you don't know which side is better, and I admit, I'm selfish. I'm selfish and a coward and I didn't deserve to be your friend. I didn't deserve to love you, though I never really did. You were better than me, and I admire you. I respect you for fighting and dying for your beliefs, but Minhwan, we are different beings, and I cannot die for the simple reason of giving life meaning.'

He'd held out his hand, and the faded yellow ribbon, torn from a millennium of wear and tear, flew away on the wind, disappearing into the distance. He looked after it for a long time, long after he could no longer see it, and then turned and walked away.

Afterwards, he'd visited Seoah, finding her just as beautiful as she was a thousand years ago. Upon seeing him, she'd smiled, the same absentminded, gentle smile she'd always smiled, and he had broken down in front of her, clutching the skirt of her dress like it was his savior, inhaling the scent of the sea from within the fabric, and cried until he had no more tears left to cry.

She'd berated him, of course, for taking so long, and he'd sat there like an idiot, taking in all her words, feeling the warmth of the fireplace coursing through his body, and he could finally relax. He'd smiled then, and held out a hand. With a smile, and as always, she took it, and they sat in silence through the night, listening to the storm rage outside, and knowing that everything would be okay.

He'd left her again, but this time without burden, and she'd stood in the doorway of the cottage he'd built a thousand years ago, leaning against the doorframe, hair blowing in the wind, and he couldn't help but look back.

He had loved her, he really had, and perhaps he still did. But there was one more weight on his mind, one more unresolved burden that he needed to unload. Seunghyun left Seoah with a purpose, the first in many years, and he set out to fulfill it.

It didn't take long to find him, the beautiful man sitting in a bar ordering an absinthe, and all Seunghyun needed to do was slip into the seat next to him and introduce himself.

'Nice to meet you,' he said, holding out a hand. 'Song Seunghyun at your service.'

Lee Hongki had laughed, Seunghyun remembers, and shook his head. 'I know who you are.' The sugar cube melted into the green liquor below, mesmerizingly beautiful, just like Lee Hongki himself, and Seunghyun grinned.

'How did you know I've lived so long?' he asked, leaning against the mahogany countertop. Hongki shrugged, taking a sip of his alcohol. 

'You had the aura,' he answered with a mysterious wave of his fingers. 'You aren't the only one, you know.'

And Seunghyun knew he had the answer. He felt his grin growing wider, and he leaned in, as close as he possibly could without touching. 'And you?' he'd whispered. 'Would you spent the rest of your impossibly long life alone?'

Hongki's only answer had been to pull him in by the back of his neck and brush his lips, feather-soft, against Seunghyun's.

_We are..._

Sometimes, Seunghyun looks at the man lying beside him in bed, underneath the pale moonlight shining through the windows, and knows that this would have happened anyway. He didn't need Minhwan's sky, lofty and prideful, and nor did he need Seoah's sea, gentle yet tumultuous. What he needed was something in between, someone he'd met and bonded with on his own accord, someone who, instead of teaching him the meaning of life, would create one with him.

Lee Hongki is all of that, and more, and for the first time in a millennium, Seunghyun is happy.

**Author's Note:**

> crossposted on aff; entry in the contest 'light and dark fantasy' hosted by dgna_forever


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